#ROADTOBOA Interview: Anti-Clone

Here we go again… Last year we covered every band on the Hobgoblin New Blood and Jagermeister stages in the run-up to Bloodstock 2015. This year, we’re going one better and aim to have interviews from all the bands on those two stages as well as all of those on the SOPHIE stage prior to the event kicking off on August 11th. That’s almost 100 interviews to get online for you lucky people over the course of the next couple of weeks. I bloody love this job, but you lot owe me a beer at Catton Hall, right?

We are Anti-Clone and we hail from Boston, Lincolnshire. Recently dubbed the murder capital of the UK!

How did you meet?

It’s a bit of a cool story really, the band was started in 2011 by Mr. Clone (vocals) and Drew (drums) – Conor (guitar) happened to go along to watch. About 6 months later, he was drafted in to play guitar for Anti-Clone and I met the guys through Con that way. It’s handy having two sets of brothers in the band. Mike joined us back in October 2015, and that’s how the current line-up came to be!

How long have you been playing together as a band?

The band has been going for 5 years now

Where does the name of the band come from?

Mr. Clone came up with the name of the band back when he started as he wanted to make a statement regarding the fact that we wanted to be our own beast and to stand out for that reason.

What are your influences – individually or as a band?

We all have quite differing musical tastes from member to member. We all have various genres that we all dip into, however the thing that brings us all together is nu-metal. That’s our collective love.

Describe your music. What makes you unique?

The easiest way to describe us is ’nu-metal with modern metal influences’, although we regularly get described as ‘post-apocalyptic metal’ too. Think if Meshuggah, Mudvayne and Marilyn Manson had a baby, then you sprinkled a dusting of Slipknot on top.

What’s your live show like – why should the baying hordes troop over to the stage you’re playing on to watch you?

Frenetic, involved and unpredictable I think is a good way to put it. We seem to be one of those bands where literally anything could happen during our set, so you wouldn’t want to miss it. Expect theatrics and a lot of headbanging.

When/how did you find out you’d been selected to play at Bloodstock?

We got an email through a few months back and couldn’t bloody believe it! It was so hard not to run out into the street and start shouting it at any and every passer-by. It was a great feeling to know that we’d be making our full festival debut. For me personally it still hasn’t properly sunk in, but I’m sure that once we’re there it will hit like a train.

What sort of setlist can we expect?

We’ll be playing a lot of stuff from our debut album The Root of Man, but expect to see at least one song from our EP Hands Sewn Together pop up for good measure.

Which main stage band do you most hope you’re not clashing with so you can see them play?

Thankfully I know that we won’t be clashing with Fear Factory, as they’re playing a different day to us, but I’m looking forward to seeing Gojira, Behemoth, Heart of a Coward, Cambion and Dragonforce too. Those are just to name a few of the main stage bands I’m looking forward to, without delving into Sophie Stage bands like: Krysthla, Beholder, This Is Turin, Meta-Stasis, Brutai and a whole bunch of others. It’s a great line up this year!

What are you working on at the moment?

Ah, that’s a secret! All I can say is: watch this space.

What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done on tour?

There are some corkers that I could tell from the Skindred tour back in 2014. The things that we learned on that included: Jager is lethal in big doses, Tinder in foreign countries leads to interesting circumstances, don’t eat pistachios in your bunk when you’re plastered, and that nights out in Germany are top notch.

What advice would you give to a young band just starting out today?

The best bit I could possibly give is: never stop grafting. It’s a long, hard way to the top and you have to be determined in what you’re doing otherwise you will get nowhere. I’ve seen too many stellar young bands with bags of potential pack it in overnight as they didn’t get huge in 6 months or less and it saddens me massively. Keep working, it’s worth it.

If you could be part of any 3-band line-up who else would you have on the bill? One band above you and one below – a chance to plug a smaller, unsigned act!

Ooh, that is a tough one. I think I would have to go for Cane Hill, us and Slipknot. Make it a proper old school freakshow. I love Cane Hill, I think they’re one of the best new bands to come out in years and their debut album Smile is incredible.

What stage / time are you playing at Bloodstock (if you have your slot yet!)

We’re playing the Sophie Lancaster stage on the 12th of August at approximately 13.30!